Glottkill: Host of the Eternity King vs Legions of Chaos

Head Away From the Light!

It's All-Skype Fight Night!

The Original Chosen of Nurgle

That time again already? So soon? 

Well, welcome back Woff-Fans. Tonight we regale you with 2400 points of Mixed Elves taking on an All-Chaos Conglomeration, End Times Magic a-gogo!

We in this case is myself (Kraken, in plain and humble text)...

And a hello again from Kas

Armies

Legions of Chaos

Using The End Times rules, to me, is a thinly disguised carte blanche to try and field the most revolting list imaginable and snowplough your enemy under a tidal wave of filth. Even better - Kas is hosting, so I don't feel obliged to stick to models I actually own!

Luckily, I've got a terrible imagination and am not very good at min-maxing, so the tidal wave of filth is all going to come from one model:

The Glottkin - Large and Live from the End Times Lounge

Blobby Sox - Exalted BSB with Barded Chaos Steed, Mark of Tzeentch, shield and Blasted Standard

Sucky Bubs - Chaos Sorceror with Barded Chaos Steed, Lvl 1 Lore of Death, Obsidian Trinket, Enchanted Shield, Dispel Scroll

a Chaos Chariot

5 Warhounds with poison and vanguard

5 Warhounds with poison

10 Marauder Horsemen with Full Command, Mark of Slaanesh, Javelins, Light Armour, Spears

10 Marauder Horsemen with Full Command, Mark of Slaanesh, Throwing Axes, Shields, Spears

a Hellcannon

a Skull Cannon of Khorne

5 Chaos Knights with Full Command, Lances, Mark of Tzeentch

I know the elves are coming, but not exactly which special blend. I'm half-expecting Malekith in one form or another because I know Kas likes a good unkillable character, and I also know he's got a Black Dragon rider model about. So why am I taking the Glottkin, given he's a terrible match against the new All Seasons Tri-Elf-Area King? Well, because he's fun and brings the Lore of Nurgle, which is always nice against Elves. And I may get lucky and not face a teleporting dragon rider, you never know. 

I'm more certain there will be some Doomfire Warlocks around, probably lots of them. So my Marauder Horse are on a special mission to deal with them. If they don't show up, then, hey ho - I reckon Slaanesh is easily the best mark for poorly armoured fast cav against a shooty army. Ignoring panic is going to help their survival massively. 

And then why not try and be manouverable? Warhound chaff, plus a nasty gunline backing us up. Find the valuable units and sit hard on them with the chariots, knights and Glotty, harrass with everything else. And shoot! 

Two cannons? Warhounds? Where's the real Kraken and what have you done with him?

Host of the Eternity King

The list was built because I wanted to try certain things, and I did not know what I would be facing. Seeing as I was hosting this time, I half expected Kraken to pull a 'haha you are facing undead/ogres' etc seeing as he knew I had the models and he had not claimed chaos.

We were playing full ET and with HOTEK lists ET magic is enforced.

That means I want a unit of both doomfire and sisters. That gives me full access to four full lores (death, dark and life, beasts). Beasts will be useful to get Wyssan's off (never managed it) and I generally like beasts.  Death has some lovely sniping spells to deal with those expensive characters. Not to so familiar with life or dark apart from the odd spell, but happy to give it a whirl.

Seeing as we were already proxying, I probably could have gone a bit nuttier with list generation, but stuck to mainly d'elves with some friends. 

The Kraken painted phoenix was always going to be on the field... My one legit model to hand had to be played... plus: it's a phoenix! I prefer frosty.

Bolt throwers are a given, so bung a couple of those in.

Now I know I have trouble with armour, and irrespective of who I am facing, someone has armour, so step forward the S7 Kharibyss.

Let's support the fast cavalry covens with a unit of fast cavalry crossbowmen.

The biggest drawback on elves are their squishiness, and I can give all my elf units within 12" of general regeneration... well that's going to help how squishy they are! Step forward the Incarnate of life. Forced to slog on foot, I wanted to put her in an elite unit. So here come my favoured blackguard (I know that other elites are considered better, but I like the blackguard); and I like sticking a frenzy generating death hag BSB in there for good fun. Ld 8 rerollable to not charge for frenzy means I think I am ok to hold and the extra s4 attacks can't hurt.

Fill in the gaps with a flanking suicide witch elf squad and a block of darkshards and we are done.

Alarielle, Incarnate of Life

Syssi, Death Hag - BSB with banner of swiftness, Witchbrew

16 Blackguard - Full command and discipline banner

21 Darkshards - Musician and std: flaming banner, shields

10 Witch Elves - Musician

10 Dark Riders - Repeater crossbows and shields 

5 Doomfire Warlocks

5 Sisters of Thorn

Kharibysss 

Frost phoenix

2 x bolt throwers

Some of the elves died a little before the battle

Terrain

A randomly generated battlefield gives us this: 

Or something like it, at any rate. Doing the maps for the battlefield from the next country, and only seeing it in the flesh via Skype, means that not only the map but the actual movement I later depict on it is even more incorrect than usual for a Skypeboot! Photos to help show how wrong I am. That portal, for example, should be over on the left side (which I managed to correct later).

Rolled randomly on the d6+4 table (then removed 2 as the field already had the hills).
The edge of one hill (where the grey step was) was scree, but had a ghost fence at the bottom of the hill. A fence and wall provide cover either side of the field. Two forests flank a clearing in the centre, and by an inconsequential river (need something better than carcasonne tiles to make a river) was the Dwarven Brewhouse. 

The ruins that no one went near (and jumps from the centre of the field to the left flank once we do an overhead flyby is supposed to be a sorcerous portal)... but no one went near it and we forgot to roll each turn as to what it did. 1/3 good, 2/3 bad; and probably at varying points targeting both of us. Let's just say it was arcane ruins then... or that we sucked all the magic into our ET imbued wizards and hence the portal did nothing. oops

Deployment

Kas wins choice of side, and sensibly picks the amazing Dwarf pub as his base of operations. This gives me a big hill and lots of fast-cavalry-friendly fences. But that's okay! A nice big artillery base hill is fine. And all the melee in the middle, with the plan being to use the two chariots to break up the enemy line and then charge Glotto and the Knights in. 

The hounds and Marauders vanguard all over the place, the javelinmen in the middle wood discovering they have poisonous berries to dip their spears in before throwing. Hurrah! Now to stay very very still. 

Pretty close, I think it was only the dark riders who were further to the right from my view point and had passed the forest and were looking at the open centre.

A little odd deployment, but the phoenix and khayibyss are looking the wrong way to maximise their initial screening power whilst being as far forward as possible.

Elves Turn 1

The phoenix took off on its own and went to threaten the marauder horesmen*, and the kharibyss focussed on the chariots and stomped forward snorting, hoping to bait a difficult charge. The darkshards and blackguard saunter forward, with the impetuous witch elves going a little further. The sisters and dark riders stay put. The dark riders stay behind the wall but line something evil up for the magic phase.

Magic phase is close in power, but the Alarielle manages to awaken the poison woods and 3 of the horsemen are killed as the vines attack., The doomfire warlocks eye up their target, deciding a purple sun was the perfect way to get rid of Glottkin: 12 wounds don't help you on an initiative test or die... when your initiative is 1. 

I would need not a misfire to get the horsemen, but high to get the chariots. Having measure I declared I could not hit Glottkin even on a 10, but would get both chariots. Of course I forgot the radius of the vortex and actually would have, but already declared I hadn't and so the portal just stopped in front of him. But 2 more horsemen and the skullcannon were sucked into the chaos.

Bolt throwers target the hellcannon and knock three wounds from it. Back line is out of the range of the darkshards, and so target into the woods (difficult shots behind those vines) but with 42 crossbow bolts flying through the air, something was going to fall and 2 more do.

*This is probably the one unfortunate mistake in skype mapping, as phoenix was facing the other horsemen; so when Kraken approached to attack he thought he was flanking, but wasn't and so got an angry bird to the face in my turn. Offering to not do it, or roll off as it as a mistake in understanding, Kraken suggested I still made the charge.

Chaos Turn 1

Good - one less cannon to worry about. No! Wait! That's my cannon! I have a shooting phase and war engines and stuff! Bah, I knew if I took horses and fast stuff I'd get all confused. 

The pitiful remnants of the javelinmen trot slowly out of the wood to get in range of the Warlocks, luckily passing all their dangerous terrain tests. The axemen trot slowly up to the Phoenix, because they fail their March test and because, look, why would they want to get close unless they had to? Some warhounds follow them, barking dangerously. 

On the other flank, the warhound dash through the trees (also venomous, leaving a dead dog on the way) and hit the Dark Riders in the flank. Everything else trots gently forward (not the Hellcannon, it's behaving just now), staying as far from the whirling Purple Sun as they can. 

Magic goes well. The Glottkin manage to cast the all-new End Times Nurgle spell, a revolting piece of jollity that behaves more like the original Firestorm of Tzeentch. In that it deals a lot of damage (5d6, hurting on 4+ with no armour) and if you get ten wounds out of it, you get a 375 point demon prince. Or a Great Unclean One if it's a demon casting it. 25+ to cast, but I get all six and roll well!

If I had one, I would have used the dispel scroll at this point. But I didn't, and so I was going to have to dispel the normal way. Also got 6 dice to dispel and a have +5 to dispel; I need an average roll.. and roll pitifully.

I doubt, with the amount of warding on the elves, that I'm going to get ten wounds off anything. So using the spell to devour the Kharybdiss seems like an excellent thing to try, and sure enough, it loses all five wounds. 

Ouch. One more save and Aralielle would have unstoppably restored 2 wounds to him next turn before casting any spells! Bah... but saving 7/12 was already a good roll; so I should not have expected any more.

Not much else happens after this piece of tremendousness. I get a soulblight on the Dark Riders, but the warhounds don't hurt them and only win the combat by one, which means they're stuck against reformed horsemen. At least it keeps the elves pinned down for a bit. 

The purple sun collapses in on itself... I'd better correct that in a moment!

The Hellcannon shoots the pub, because why wouldn't you. 

Elves Turn 2

The cartographer realises that the phoenix was doing that things that owls do and now sees which way he is facing, and gets an angry bird to the face. The Horsemen shoot at it on the way in, failing to wound it. 

The frenzied witch elves did not have to charge, but elect to anyway, and the three remaining javelins run through the deadly forest to escape their wooping.

The other infantry walk forward, the shards walking so that they can shoot and the guard keeping pace.

The sisters move forward to line up some spells, and with the other horsemen now busy with a phoenix, the doomfire warlocks are free to slink behind the wood and line up Glottkin for a purple sun. Now that is a tempting battleline!

Magic is again close in dice rolls, but another purple sun goes off! (still only risking small template). Everything but the hellcannon would be hit if a 10 was rolled. 

And it was.... Mr Glottkin can't be that lucky twice and is taken from the field. Two chaos knights and more fleeing horsemen are also taken by the vortex.

42 shots from the shards are aiming for lucky hits on the knights; hard to hit and then decent armour.. but let's keep firing!

Ha! The Banner of Crazy Warding does its job with aplomb here. Not one wound from this hail, even with a doubled strength hit or two.

The darkriders dispatch the warhounds and face back to the chariots. The Phoenix proves his worth and the marauders turn tail having failed to wound, only to be torn asunder by the bird.

The bolt throwers forget to shoot, but Kraken graciously lets it them fire at the start of his movement, their target has not moved, and we waste 30 seconds as some dice roll and they both miss. 

Chaos Turn 2

Riiiiiight. 

The knights and chariot decide to try and take out the Blackguard. It's not likely, they'll tie us up at the least, but the tiny chance of scoring some good points is well worth taking. Maybe I'll get some Ld reductions on them in the magic phase or something. 

The knights don't even make it, in the event. The Hellcannon is so annoyed at this, it decides to charge about for a while. I decide that coming off the hill to plug the flank, even though this means running through the Purple Sun, is worth the risk. Obviously, the Hellcannon falls directly into it and is never seen again. 

On a six. So unlucky. 

Hey, that's how I roll.

The magic phase is quiet, mostly as I manage to miscast Doom and Darkness on the Dark Riders. The resulting detonation takes a wound off the BSB and sucks the rest of my power away. Not that I had a lot to start with - for the second time in a row, I've rolled three ones and a six. Good job all my demons are dead, or I'd be worried about their demonic stability right now.

Two whole impact hits score through Alarielle's regeneration umbrella! Then the BSB and a couple more super-fast elves chop the chariot to bits before the riders can thump anything. Hmm. 

Love a frenzied dread hag.

Elves Turn 3

Ok witch elves... you stay here and so what you do best to those poor dogs (we won't tell the RSPCA). Let's ignore that scared javelineer, and the other 6 of you: we are going to encircle the knights.

Black guard move forward to ensure they can charge when they want, the magic wielding fast cav line up on one flank and the shooty cav the other, the phoenix flaps behind squawking.

Doom and darkness goes off on the Knights (they are low in numbers and panic tests are going to start aplenty soon, so let's make it at -3), Alarielle summons a throne to sit and watch the carnage. The sisters then draw a massive (aka high powered) amber spear from the earth and chuck it at the sorceror; creating a massive hole in the sorceror's chest, but then bouncing off the BSB.

Concentrated shooting (62 shots) kills one knight... that's some armour.

Yep! And in fact, the BSB made two Tzeentchian Ward saves at various points in this. I really like this unit.

Chaos Turn 3

Surrounded! That's just what the Chaos Knights call a 'target rich environment.' Thanks to all my casualties, the little gap Kas has left for the Darkshards to shoot through is now the right size for me to fit through. I charge the crossbows. 

...And fail, and get shot at a lot again,  although quite ineffectually. The Banner of Change works very well on the Knights - even double-strength d'elf crossbow hits leave them enough armour to live with. 

The warhounds try an optimists charge on the Sisters of the Thorn and yap to a halt on the edge of the wood. 

Magic and shooting are both over quite quickly now. Somehow, Kas's luck means I fail to net any further wounds at this stage.

First phase with a big differential in magic, 16 vs 8... this could be bad I fear for a second, before realising there were no longer any wizards. Not on the map, but the purple sun is dancing around on top of the hill destroying shrubbery. We could therefore assume that these dice were used to get rid of it!

Although in the magic phase, the demon roll means the Slaaneshi god flicks the warlocks (typical), the sisters and a bolt thrower. It is only the crew of the bolt thrower that think that the orgy sounds good; and let's be honest they are not needed anymore and so head off for some fun, leaving the battlefield.

Once again, random battlefield events are scoring better than my army.

Elves Turn 4

Nothing is going to charge, I think I have more power in magic and shooting than the combat (where I could suffer some points lost)... thinking about it in aftermath, I don't think this would have been the case..

Magic finally yields some power. 

My first miscast from Alarielle... eep sucked into the warp... I'll think i'll reroll that, that's better. Warlocks, Sisters and Alarielle just get a headache, but in Scanners' style: one sister's head explodes.

With only two knights and wounded BSB, concentrated magic and shooting is enough to dispatch them.

In fact, the last knight breaks before getting shot repeatedly in the back. Backs are what Dark Elves learn to shoot at first, when they're young.

Chaos Turn 4

There, I knew I could do it! With a single unit of Ld5 hounds routing fast towards the edge, I give this effort a timely lethal injection.

Results:

Tabled! My record grows ever longer!

20:0 (or 2565 vs 230 in old money)

Aftermath

As we chat over the game, I finally remember my sorceror had a dispel scroll that would have prevented the second Purple Sun eating the Glottkin.

Sigh.

Well, when life serves you lemons, rage against the lemons, I reckon. Do not go quiet into that good lemon! Damn you, lemons! Damn you all to hell!

Even if I had remembered it, I think there would have been a very strong chance that the Warlocks would have kept striking that particular spark until something lit. For his points, initiative 1 is a very nasty achilles heel for a general. Against the right foe, i.e. something without access to the Lore of Death, he's probably a good bet. Otherwise he's an accident waiting to happen.

Yes, it was a matter of time, from fast cav who could skirt around, it was going to happen. I agree, it is a big spend/risk to be so susceptible to such a prevalent spell.

So thank goodness Malekith didn't show! There's virtually no way the Glottkin could take him without using magic. And even then, it's unlikely. I mean, for starters, he'd have a 2+ save against the`ir non-magical melee attacks!

Initially I did not consider as he was not built. This is clearly a pathetic decision, seeing as my delves are in Sweden, and I used mainly undead models to represent my pointy eared army. Similarly, I wanted to avoid taking the infamous (and expected) dragon banner.

Otherwise? I think Slaaneshi Marauders are okay. Fast, half-decent shooting, good reliable harrassers. But too weak to take out a monster and not resistant enough to combined magic and shooting to survive here. If I'd had first turn, though? A very different tale, I suspect. One with fewer Warlocks and more Glottkins in.

Yes, true, although you would have negated their 4+ ward, they started in Alarielle's bubble so replaced a 4+ ward with a 4+ regen. I think I would have had a couple to get the spell off.

I loved the concept of Alarielle, but her obvious abilities did not come into play (ie restoring wounds on spells cast, just for being Alarielle and being in her bubble of life) but the regeneration did prove a deterrent for charges/targeting I believe based on some of the comments made. Even though Alarielle effectively has rerollable (on anything <i6) three (four due to frenzy) cannonball attacks in close combat, always striking first (against this army) I was too worried about throwing her into combat; knowing that I would be safely in a challenge: I perhaps should have done. 

I forgot the loremaster meant I could re-roll failed casting attempts - although I don't think that there were any game changing ones for that.

It did not occur to me until afterwards that the roll two then roll two more for magic should be applied to elves, and the phoenix (who has a benefit based on highest of magic rolls) has a far higher chance of getting a 6 when you compare to the highest of all four dice. I don't think it made a difference to the game at all, but would have meant at least he varied.

Watch out for more tomorrow as I left the board out for another game tonight!

Ooo!